


and i still get a little starstruck

by shittycarmodsdaily



Category: SCP Foundation
Genre: (woo burnout), He Set Up A Fairytale Proposal In Just Seven Days With This One Weird Trick, M/M, Marriage Proposal, On Hiatus, Romantic Comedy, Valentine's Day, theythemmer bright
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:06:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29283471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shittycarmodsdaily/pseuds/shittycarmodsdaily
Summary: Gears thrives with structure,  and structure comes with preparedness, so it's only reasonable that the day he decided to propose to Iceberg, he started planning. And because he's a conscientious person, his plan accounted for disaster. Multiple, even.Really, after the third consecutive catastrophic incident, you can't exactly blame someone for their plans falling short, anyway. So now: It's February 8th. He wants to propose on their anniversary, Valentine's. He has seven days to plan a proposal.This will be absolutely fine.
Relationships: Dr. Gears/Dr. Iceberg (SCP Foundation)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 29





	1. Day One

**Author's Note:**

> because sex at frigid temp day is in a week and we're choosing to honor it by writing gears and iceberg a fluffy as hell romcom with a healthy relationship <3

Gears likes being prepared for things. Preparedness is an absolutely vital trait to have as a Foundation employee, and throughout his tenure Gears has always prided himself on putting in the extra mile to plan ahead. It was only reasonable that five months ago, when he decided he wanted to propose to Iceberg on their fifth anniversary together, he started working on the plan immediately, to ensure that the gesture would be perfect; part of him, looking at the circumstances currently causing said plans to break down, feels like he should’ve simply prepared _more_.

To be completely fair, the first blizzard (which slowed down delivery times considerably) was accounted for. The second blizzard (which, combined with the snow buildup from the first, essentially trapped everyone in Site-19) was bad luck. The discovery of a catastrophic error in the Site-19 digital filing systems, followed by them being shut down temporarily for maintenance and the physical filing systems fully replacing them in the interim… well. Actually, that’s a problem for _several_ more pressing reasons than his proposal, but it’s certainly not helping anything.

It’s February 8th. He has a week to build a proposal from scratch. The _only_ aspect of the original plans remaining is the ring, which arrived in late December. 

Gears isn’t very good at panicking, he thinks. His responses never come out as pronounced as other people make it seem, and he’s not very good at picking out individual emotions from the swirl of his mind. He is _fairly certain_ that what he's experiencing right now is panic, though. Fairly certain.

* * *

“So,” Jack Bright says to him, pulling a chunk of files out of a drawer and flipping through them. The two of them have been sorting which files need to be copied and distributed to active project teams for about fifteen minutes, and Bright is apparently bored enough to seek conversation.

“What?” 

“Your anniversary is coming up, huh?” Bright says, audibly grinning. 

Ah. He had nearly forgotten that his relationship with Iceberg was something of a public spectacle (evidently his demeanor made the very idea that he _could_ be in a relationship a curiosity). 

“Yes.”

“And? Any plans?” 

Gears pauses for a moment. Bright will absolutely offer advice if he confides; whether the advice will be _good_ is perhaps another question. Whether he can afford to be picky is a third question, considering the pressing nature of his concerns.

“Not anymore,” he replies. 

“Not _anymore?_ ” they ask. He gives them a moment to sort things out on their own. “ _Oh_. Snowed in.” He nods. “Well, shit. Y’think you can repair them?”

Well. That _is_ the question, isn’t it.

“I don’t know.”

“How bad is it?”

_There is a ring that has been sitting in my dresser for a month and the script I set up so that I would know exactly how to give it to him is gone,_ Gears thinks, and of course doesn’t manage to say that out loud.

“They were… involved,” is what he gets out. 

“One to ten?”

Gears hates scale questions, honestly. They’re always very undefined; one person’s ten is another person’s four, and especially in things like this the question tends to require numerical quantification of things that don’t lend themselves to solid definition easily. He opens his mouth intending to respond in this vein, perhaps, or give a solid example of what he’s having to replace (gourmet chocolate that was already on back order _prior_ to the blizzards, for an unfortunate example). It doesn't quite work out.

"Everything," he says (which isn't an answer), amending to "Almost everything," (which is also not an answer) after a second. 

"Okay, might need a little more detail," Bright says, amused. 

He considers pointing out that this would also be the case if he had properly answered the scale question, but decides that perhaps that's a _little_ petty. 

"I had reservations at a restaurant off-Site," he says instead. Bright sucks in a breath through their teeth. "I ordered him chocolates, which would have been delivered about two days into the first blizzard. I…" He doesn't tend to make eye contact, and indeed hasn't been looking at Bright's face for most of this conversation, but delving into the things he had planned out makes him want to look further away from them than he already is somehow. "I was going to order roses." The roses had always been an unfortunate part of the plan, due to their fragility necessitating they be acquired very briefly before the whole thing commenced, but they were absolutely vital. Iceberg had confessed with them first; it only seemed right that Gears return them in his proposal.

"Yeah, wow, that's… a lot," Bright says lowly, and then, more teasing, "Really going all in, huh? What were you gonna do, ask him to marry you?"

"Um," Gears says, hazarding a glance at their face. They're visibly confused for a moment before breaking into recognition. 

" _Fuck_ ," they say. He nods in agreement. "Tell me you at least have the ring."

"Yes," he replies. 

"Good. Good. You can make up for most of the rest, I think. Could probably make up for the ring, too, but as long as one piece of all this is in place, I think you can swing it." Bright's confidence would almost be infectious if Gears wasn't already much too far into his own worries to be receptive.

"How am I meant to 'swing' this, exactly?" he asks. _Almost everything is missing. The whole Site is overwhelmed with work. Any plans I had functionally do not exist anymore._

Bright sighs and, as if they're explaining something extremely obvious, say "Gears. I've known the two of you for the better part of a decade. Iceberg has been in love with you the whole time. You could propose with a fucking Ring Pop at four in the morning coming off a graveyard shift and he'd keep himself awake for the extra minute it would take to say yes. You don't need to impress him."

Gears digests that for a moment. 

"But I _want_ to," he finally says. 

"Then you'll impress him by getting literally _anything_ together in the wake of two blizzards and a sitewide catastrophe. Speaking of which," Bright says, pulling another filing cabinet up to them and taking a sheaf of papers out. 

"This needs to be planned out, though," Gears says; perhaps unsurprisingly, it doesn't come out quite as frustrated as he feels. 

"Oh, I'm not _ruling out_ the planning, you clearly need to do _something_ there to be comfortable with this; I'm saying it's not the end of the world if you can't live up to… how long did you take to work out the old one?"

"Five months."

"Five— yeah, forget 'end of the world', it is completely reasonable if you can't live up to five months worth of planning in a week. You _really_ like thinking ahead, huh." 

"I started planning the day after I decided to propose," Gears says with no small amount of pride.

"Alright, well. You've got the bones of that plan. You've got someone to give feedback. You've got… probably most of the Site-19 resources at your disposal if you ask, not that there's a ton of shit in here _designed_ for marriage proposals. You can get something set up for the two of you."

Gears nods.

"Look," Bright says, softer, "I get that you need to structure this and all the structure you already had is suddenly gone. You can set up more. It will feel super fucking weird at first, but you can get to where you need to be to propose to him, and then you can actually do it, and he'll love it. He'll love it no matter what, honestly, and I'd be leading with that, but I _guess_ I gotta grant that he'll probably love it more if you're not completely panicked during the whole thing."

He takes this in. 

"Dr. Bright?"

"Yeah?"

"You are an exceptional site director," Gears says. He knows the criteria for selection to the position well; competent Site direction requires exactly this kind of emotional nuance and willingness to help unravel a problem (in fact, this precise dimension of the job is why he's never bothered to request a promotion to site director; he's well aware of his limited capacity for emotional reading).

"Interesting way of saying 'thank you for helping me, friend'," Bright says. "You're welcome, though." 

They sit there and sort files for another hour until Gears is called away by the archival staff to resolve a clearance issue. Bright is prone to being somewhat dramatic and tends to exaggerate things in service to their rhetorical points, and Gears knows all of this, but he still leaves feeling more hopeful than he has in a few days. 

* * *

Six and a half hours later, sitting with Iceberg and watching a copier churn out paper, Gears is forced to acknowledge a slight issue with the idea of “planning this in a week”: he spends more time near Iceberg than not, and while this is in many ways a joy and a respite during what would otherwise be monotonous or even frustrating work, it does make the idea of materially planning a proposal to the man a little bit complicated in the moment. 

His initial proposal plans were made in bits and pieces, taking advantage of the time just before and after his shifts (which tended to start earlier and end later than Iceberg’s); under current circumstances, their shifts are synchronized and extended, leaving the bare minimum time to eat and sleep, let alone work out a proposal. 

Iceberg nudges him.

“Mm?”

“How much more paper do you think this is gonna be?” Gears checks his clipboard against the pile of already-copied documents.

“Another few reams. Why?”

“I’m bored,” Iceberg says, smiling up at him. “Let’s do something.”

“That doesn’t compromise our task to monitor the copier?” Gears says. He doesn’t think his amusement translates into his voice very well, but Iceberg’s spent a lot of time learning to read him, and seems to pick up on it regardless.

“That doesn’t compromise our task to monitor the copier,” he repeats fondly. “Although you gotta realize that’s limiting our options _significantly_ , and I’m pretty sure the paper will live.”

“Oh, and I suppose you'd prefer us to compromise Site security," Gears says. 

"Cog, you've known me for seven years. By now, you should be fully aware that my Foundation employment is nothing but an elaborate ruse designed to get me on the inside, where I can do the most damage." 

"As a Level 2 administrative assistant, dear?"

Iceberg mock-glares at Gears. 

"I know _so_ many ways to set you on fire, you know."

"They don't upgrade your clearance for immolating your work partner, I'm afraid," Gears says. Iceberg sighs dramatically in response and sidles closer to him. 

It's been almost five years, and Gears still feels sometimes like he's never going to get some fundamental part of this down. Iceberg leans against him like it's the most natural thing in the world, and he sits there looking down at him and wondering where these instincts are supposed to come from in the first place. How Iceberg knows to just _touch_ him, when half the time all Gears manages is to send himself into a spiral wondering what he should do. 

_Think this through,_ he reminds himself. _It’s not very difficult once you’ve listed all the information out._ He wants to put his arm around Iceberg. Iceberg is already leaning against him. The two of them are in a rarely visited room. He’s done this before (though it certainly doesn’t seem to have gotten easier in any linear way). He _likes_ holding Iceberg. 

He wraps an arm around Iceberg’s waist and pulls him ever so slightly closer. Iceberg looks up at him and breaks into a smile. 

"Now who’s unprofessional," he says softly. 

"It's a secluded room," Gears replies. "Nobody has come in since we've started at this." 

“Doesn’t make this any more dignified of you as a _Level Four Administrator_. Putting your arm around random men who happen to share a copy room with you.”

“As I recall, we went over a great deal of forms together to be allowed to do things like put our arms around each other in copier rooms.” (Iceberg had said, at the time, that they were “my new favorite forms”, with a very lovely smile, and if Gears had had the wherewithal he would have blushed. As it was, it had taken a moment to compose himself and keep filling them out.)

“Hm. So one could say it’s actually _more_ professional of us to be doing this,” Iceberg says. “Since we went through all the paperwork and all.”

“Perhaps,” Gears says, and has to turn his face away from Iceberg’s for a moment at the sheer force of warmth radiating from his smile.

Iceberg makes a happy little sigh and relaxes into Gears's arm, and Gears remembers again that he wants to marry him, to spend the rest of his life having moments like this. The thought is as comfortable as he is in this moment, and he almost can’t remember why he’s been so distressed thinking about it lately. 

His phone vibrates in his pocket. He takes it out idly and checks the notification.

Bright texted “ _hope u’ve calmed down now_ _☆_ _. i was serious about helping u plan, btw ;) i’m invested now i wanna do this thing._ ”

Ah. Yes. The complete loss of structure, which he already needed to do things like hold his partner of five years, and was undoubtedly going to flail helplessly without if he seriously attempted something like a proposal of _marriage_ sans any preparation.

“Anything important?” Iceberg asks.

“Just Dr. Bright making conversation.” He hopes very sincerely that that was an uninteresting enough description for Iceberg not to want to follow up on it.

“Ah. They’re bored too, huh,” Iceberg says. “Guess they’re just unlucky not to get assigned work with someone who makes spending time easy.”

“I’m afraid I’m not about to start lending you out, dear.” Iceberg makes a pleased (?) noise.

“Jeez, who taught you how to be smooth,” he says with a strange smile. “You _hiding_ something from me?”

He _is_ , isn’t he. This is an alright thing to hide, he thinks, if his understanding of relationships isn’t failing him completely, but it still feels strange to do something behind Iceberg’s back when so much of their relationship relies on them being upfront.

He shakes his head, perhaps a little bit too late, and Iceberg’s smile shifts into something more quizzical. 

“We can talk about it later,” he says, thoughtfully. “In the meantime, I think this thing just ran out of paper.” (In fact, now that Iceberg mentions it, the mechanical noise of the copiers seems to have hushed somewhat.)

Gears lets out a long breath and removes his arm from Iceberg’s waist; Iceberg goes to replace the paper in the copier with an apologetic smile.

“So Cog,” Iceberg says, grinning, “any plans for our anniversary?”

Gears freezes. _If you tell him how much you had set up, he’ll suspect something, probably? Will he ask if you just say you had something but it fell through? Would it be better to just tell him everything now or would that ruin it?_

“Wait, shit, yeah,” Iceberg says after a moment of tense (on Gears’ part, at least) silence. “Anything you had set up… _isn’t_ anymore, huh.”

“Yes,” Gears says, and if he could he’d wince at how flat it sounds.

“Oh, _Gears_. I don’t mind, you know that.” He does, and under any other context he’d be much less antsy about the whole thing. ”Look, I know it won’t be the same as what you had set up, but we can figure something out together,” Iceberg says, and more quietly “Honestly, I’d love that.”

Gears doesn’t tend to use profanity. Aside from people occasionally trying to bait him into cursing, this generally doesn’t affect his life; his speech patterns have always been somewhat more rigid compared to others’, and this is simply a facet of that. 

That being said, in a moment of supreme vindication for Jack Bright, Benjamin Kondraki, and several interns that had been assigned to him at various times, as he looks down at Iceberg’s embarrassed smile, the single coherent thought rising to the top of his head is _I’m fucked._

It does not abate during the following hours, and by the time he settles into bed next to Iceberg that night, it’s evolved to _I’m fucked, completely._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're not just putting it in the tags but for the record the sole instigating factor of the entire plot of this fic is "gears (autistic) tries VERY HARD to repair enough structure to safely put himself in the Unknown Social Situation that is proposing marriage after his previous plans fall through"
> 
> peer pressure us into writing more of this at systemaltoclef dot tumblr dot com


	2. Day Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day 2 give it up for day 2

Gears has been told, on occasion, that he’s an excellent liar; although he appreciates the attempt at a compliment, he’s always strongly suspected this is more an indicator that he’s simply a terrible communicator in general. While he certainly doesn’t mind omitting or fabricating information as long as he has time to prepare, most  _ spontaneous  _ lies he’s attempted over the years have been deeply uncomfortable experiences that he comes out of astonished at what people take at face value when the face is his.

He understands his reputation, of course, and he doesn’t exactly mind being able to fool other people as necessary, but it’s a little bewildering that his expressions are apparently as confusing to those around him as theirs are to him. The only people who seem to reliably know how to read him are his very close friends; Kain Pathos Crow, Iceberg, and occasionally Jack Bright are the only people to date who consistently pick up on his emotions from nonverbal cues alone, which brings him to his current problem.

Iceberg pads into their kitchen and wraps his arms around Gears.

“G’morning,” he murmurs into Gears’s chest, voice still warm with sleep.

“Good morning,” Gears replies. He said “problem” singular. There are actually several complicating factors to this situation:

_ One, _ the fact that he has no preparation.  _ Two, _ the fact that he’s trying to lie— in a very complex way— to one of the few people on earth who know him well enough to recognize what he’s doing.

Iceberg squeezes him one last time before letting go to set the coffee machine, and Gears is filled with a tangle of feelings and the somewhat embarrassing urge to just pull him back into his arms.

_ ...Three,  _ it’s Iceberg, and Iceberg is simultaneously the most comforting presence he knows and the most confusing one.

“So hey, Cog,” Iceberg says, drumming his fingers on the counter. “You got any ideas to start out our Valentine’s plans?”

Gears nods automatically, because he technically does, and before he can properly panic about just giving that information out, Iceberg smiles in a way that practically glows. Comforting and confusing.

* * *

The Foundation’s standard procedure in crisis is to extend and stagger shifts in such a way as to ensure a constant flow of work to resolve the problem. While this is generally a fine policy, it does strain somewhat in practice with regards to work that needs to go through several departments; although the schedule is designed to place related groups in overlapping shifts, this doesn’t necessarily work for departments that are more universal in domain (such as upper-level administration), and despite the regular review of the Foundation crisis regulations, no easy solution has been found. 

In practice, what all this means is that Gears and Iceberg both technically knew to expect the pile of paperwork outside their shared office door, though this foreknowledge does nothing to stifle the quiet dismay that rises up in the two of them at the sight of it in the slightest.

"It's gonna be okay, babe," Iceberg mutters at Gears's side, squeezing his arm. "I’ve been keeping a lighter in our office for years for this exact purpose. As long as we keep our alibis straight, they can’t do a thing to us." 

"They'll just reprint the forms, dear."

“So after we burn the paper we fake our own deaths and live in hiding in the Canadian wilderness. If Kondraki could pull it off, so can we.” (Dr. Kondraki didn't  _ actually _ do this, and both of them know it, but Gears understands Iceberg’s point.)

"I'm afraid we have to just fill out the paperwork," Gears says. Iceberg winces and lets out a long breath. 

"Y'know, a lot of these probably just need a signoff, and those'll go twice as fast if you let me forge your signature on them," he says. Gears looks down at the stack of paper, which is nearly up to the door’s handle, and sighs. 

"…Just read out what I'm being asked to sign on before you sign it," he says, unlocking their office door and taking in a chunk of forms off of the top of the pile. Iceberg takes his own sheaf of papers and follows him in, setting the pile on his desk. A moment passes as Iceberg flips through the top of the papers. 

"Nobody sorted these, did they," he says in defeat. Gears checks through the first few of his own stack of papers. 

"Not by any means I recognize."

" _ Incredible _ ," Iceberg says. Gears will freely admit he isn’t the strongest with social cues, but he's  pretty sure this is sarcasm. 

Despite this, the next hour passes fairly peacefully; Gears fills out forms at his desk, Iceberg calls out summaries of forms for him to affirm or deny and signs them accordingly, and the two of them settle into a pleasant working rhythm. 

"Containment engineering needs a final signoff on retrieving data from before shutdown out of the computer system," Iceberg says. 

"Sign." Iceberg scribbles a signature on the form, puts it in the 'complete' pile on his desk, and takes another off the stack. (Gears would be more worried about Iceberg knowing how to forge his signature if he were anyone else, but he assumes this isn’t going to do much harm to him in the long term, considering.)

"You know— oh, another from archival—" (Gears nods, and Iceberg signs it.) "you know," Iceberg says, voice dipping lower, "I've been thinking.”

"Oh?"

"We've…" Iceberg trails off, clicking his pen. "We've been together for a while, huh."

"Yes," Gears says. Truthfully,  _ how _ long still surprises him a little; when he had first accepted Iceberg's confession, it had been with the assumption that their relationship would last a few months at best, and after enough time trying to navigate his emotional clumsiness and difficulty with communication, Iceberg would simply give up on him and transfer out. He didn't. To Gears’s continued surprise and joy, he still hasn't. 

"And we're happy?" Iceberg says, his tone picking up at the end. As if he's nervous, Gears thinks? He shouldn't be nervous about that, unless Gears is missing something. (Is this a conversation with  _ subtext _ , he wonders? Iceberg knows Gears doesn’t do well with subtext; this is either an accident on Iceberg’s part or Iceberg is deliberately hiding something himself.

His stomach drops at the last thought. He reminds it and himself that worrying about whether Iceberg’s hiding things is, considering everything, blindingly hypocritical.)

"Very much so," Gears says, trying to project as much warmth as possible into his voice. It doesn’t seem to work very well, but Iceberg smiles. 

"And we're happy," Iceberg repeats in a much softer tone. "So. I've been thinking about stuff, and, uh." Gears waits a moment for him to continue. 

"Mm?" he prompts.

"…And our anniversary is coming up, so," Iceberg says in a strained, odd voice. Gears is terrible with social cues, but he's almost positive this doesn't sound like it was the original end of his sentence. His voice gets more upbeat as he continues. "I'd say let's do something special for our fifth, but. Well. I guess we'll be lucky to do anything for our fifth, huh." 

Unfortunately, despite Iceberg's tone, this is a fair assessment. 

"We'll find something to do together," Gears says instinctively, and before he can properly internalize how much of a bad idea it was to say that, Iceberg smiles.

"So— oh, wait—” he passes Gears a form, “so we gotta plan this all in six days, counting today and Valentine’s, right?” Gears makes a noise of (grumbled internally if not externally) affirmation, and Iceberg’s smile widens. “So it’s a  _ challenge _ .”

Gears has resigned himself to never quite understanding some things about Iceberg, even considering that Iceberg is one of the people most willing to explain themselves to him; they are simply very different people. Iceberg sees  _ this  _ situation, which to Gears is little more than confusing and overwhelming, and apparently understands it as an interesting puzzle; and to be honest, hearing that almost makes Gears feel better about this whole thing. Iceberg loves him. Iceberg will help him, as his partner, to build up more structure for their Valentine’s Day together. They’ll solve the puzzle as a team.

Of course, the picture Gears is working with is larger than Iceberg’s, and he can’t give Iceberg too many of his pieces lest he catch on to the discrepancy, and— he thinks if he extends the metaphor any further, it’ll break down, but the point remains: he’s only doing part of this together with Iceberg, and so only part of the tangle in his mind has resolved itself; the part he’s  _ genuinely  _ worried about, he’s still doing alone. (With Bright, but Bright, for all their confidence, is simply not as good at calming him down about things like this as Iceberg.)

“Cog?” Iceberg says, and he realizes he hasn’t been paying attention for at least a little while. “Cog. Level 3 Containment need access to the Level 4 archives. Apparently.” Gears nods, embarrassed, and Iceberg smiles as he signs the page. “Lost in thought, huh?”

“Just… something I’ve been thinking about,” Gears says, and even though he immediately tenses at how ambiguous that sounds, Iceberg doesn’t push him further.

* * *

The good news is that by the time lunch comes around, Gears has found a more pressing concern to distract himself with; the bad news is that said concern is the encroaching possibility of a repetitive strain injury on Iceberg’s part.

“Dear, how bad is it, ah…”  _ On a scale from one to ten  _ is unfortunately the first ending to that sentence Gears can think of. “How much do you think you  _ can  _ do right now?” Iceberg, currently lying on the office sofa and gripping his right hand in his left, frowns.

“Not a whole lot.” 

Gears sighs.

“Do you think we need to go to the infirmary?” He privately suspects that he already knows the answer to this question, but there’s no sense in trying to drag Iceberg if he’s not willing to go. Iceberg lets go of his hand briefly to pull a pillow out from under his back and shove his face into it.

“We’re going to the infirmary whether I say yes to this question or not, aren’t we.”

“You haven’t been writing for ten minutes and you’re still in pain, dear,” Gears says as gently as he can muster. Iceberg peeks out from under the pillow and groans.

“I’m gonna waste our lunch.”

“If it’s a waste to monitor your injury.”

“I’m gonna waste  _ your  _ time working. During… ” Iceberg shrugs his shoulders, apparently in replacement to gesturing with his hands, ”this mess.”

“I can bring some of the papers to work on while they treat you.” 

“Exactly like I said. Didn’t say yes, but I’m still going,” Iceberg sighs. “If you  _ really  _ loved me, you’d let me get carpal tunnel in peace.” He stands up from the sofa, face scrunching up. “ Oh, and whatever’s wrong with my shoulders. If you loved me like you say you do you’d let me do this to my shoulders.”

“Your shoulders are injured too?” Gears picks up a pen and half of the remaining forms on his desk.

“Uh. Pretend I didn’t say that. That’s the—” Iceberg tenses and rearranges his grip on his wrist, “third act twist. Okay. Okay, nevermind, I’m actually  _ really  _ into the infirmary idea suddenly. Let’s go, please.” 

The two of them shuffle into the hallway and start walking.

“Cog?” Iceberg says after a moment. “We have to talk right now, I’m sorry. I need— distract me.”

Gears searches his mind for distraction material for a moment; just when he’s about to decide he’s come up empty on safe topics, Iceberg stumbles and makes a  _ noise,  _ and Gears hastily reevaluates what he’s willing to say to keep Iceberg's mind off his wrist (and, apparently, shoulders). 

“I had dinner reservations for our anniversary,” he says. Iceberg turns his head to look at him. “Um, off-Site.” Nod.  _ Keep going _ . “I… haven’t been to a restaurant in a while, honestly. This would’ve been the first time in a little under a year.”

“I’m honestly kinda surprised it’s been that short of a time,” Iceberg murmurs.

“Well. Our fellow coworkers are perhaps more enthusiastic about off-Site recreation than I am, and they’re  _ certainly  _ more enthusiastic to have company.” Iceberg half-laughs.

“Fair. Keep telling me about this?”

“I… well, I don’t know how to judge or describe restaurants, I’m afraid. The reviews highlighted the dessert menu, so I thought you would enjoy that.” Another nod. “I don’t mind losing the reservation, I think, but I’m afraid I’m not sure how to replace this in our new Valentine’s plans.”

“It’s dinner,” Iceberg says, smiling. Gears isn’t sure why, exactly, given the content of what he’s saying, but he certainly  _ is. _ “We can replace it with more dinner.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Gears says, because that can’t possibly be how it works. “The whole point of it was that we were going to a restaurant.” (As far as he can tell, admittedly, and he does tend to have some gaps in his understanding of things.)

“The restaurant doesn’t  _ matter _ as much as the two of us having dinner together.” Iceberg pauses for a long moment. “Ugh, sorry. Hurts.” 

“…You don’t have to talk if it’s too bad,” Gears says. Iceberg shakes his head rapidly.

“No, this is important,” Iceberg says, and then somewhat more forcefully, “You don’t have to take me out somewhere to have a nice anniversary dinner together, y’know? The restaurant means less to me than being with you.” Gears waits for a moment, and when Iceberg seems finished, speaks. 

“There’s nothing different about another dinner at home, though,” he says. “I want this to be. Hm. Special, I suppose.”

Iceberg mutters something Gears doesn’t catch, and then, louder, “So we’ll do something to make it special.” 

“Like what?” 

“Make something different. Maybe bake something together?” Iceberg says. The tone of his voice on the second sentence is odd, and he’s smiling in a way Gears doesn’t quite recognize.

“Would you like to do that?” Gears asks. Iceberg’s smile becomes more familiar and faintly embarrassed.

“I’ve. Yeah. I’ve been trying to figure out how to ask you for, uh. You probably don’t need to know how long.” 

Gears has baked for a while, and Iceberg has always cheerfully accepted the things he makes, but he’s never said anything about wanting to join him. The thought is nice; Iceberg is both a lovely presence and unerringly precise when he needs to be (he  _ does  _ need to be, specializing in explosives), which combined make him an excellent prospective baking partner. 

“I would love to bake with you, dear,” he says. Iceberg perks up.

They walk for another moment in silence before Iceberg speaks again.

“So, um.” 

“Yes?”

“…You got any other ideas for our anniversary?” Iceberg says in a tone Gears doesn’t recognize. For a moment, he almost wants to call it leading, before he reminds himself that he’s anxious about the proposal and therefore very likely seeing patterns (emotions?) where they wouldn’t hypothetically exist.

“I, ah. No?” Gears offers. Horrible. Why he ever bothers to lie is beyond him.

“Any plans you had? Even if they fell through,” Iceberg says.  _ The human mind is geared for pattern recognition. False positives are safer than false negatives. Iceberg is not talking strangely right now; if anything, you’re projecting your own behavior on to him. _

He  _ really  _ doesn’t want to directly lie to Iceberg, to be honest, even in greater service of the proposal. He can probably admit something.

“I was going to order roses for you,” he says. “I doubt that’s as salvageable as the dinner.” Iceberg breaks into a smile at that, and Gears wishes he were in a place to appreciate it.

“Probably not, no.” Gears nods and hopes it’s not stiff enough for Iceberg to notice. “It’s a shame. The roses would’ve been incredibly sweet of you.” 

“Thank you,” Gears says softly.

Iceberg starts to open his mouth again before he notices that Gears has stopped walking; they’ve reached the infirmary doors.

“Did you have something to say, dear?”

“Not in twenty seconds, I’m afraid,” Iceberg says. “We can pick back up when they’re done doing whatever to me, okay?” Gears nods.

The two of them step in; Iceberg goes to talk to the infirmary receptionist, and Gears sits down in one of the waiting chairs, takes out the papers and pen he brought, and weighs whether he’s imagining things or if Iceberg is acting strangely.

Unfortunately, the simplest and probably most likely answer is that Iceberg has picked up that something is going on with  _ him _ , and is reacting accordingly; Gears is not accustomed to or at all comfortable with intentionally lying to his loved ones, even through omission, and this is almost certainly (for his body language at least) painfully obvious. More unfortunately, he can’t think of any way to  _ resolve  _ this for at least the next four days.

Despite getting very little work done, he hasn’t figured out any answers when Iceberg comes back twenty minutes later with a compression glove on his wrist and instructions to avoid further handwriting, nor does he manage to do so back at their office, with Iceberg sorting forms and cheerfully suggesting potential baking projects, and by the time their shift is over and they’re going home for dinner, he’s exhausted from the combined effort of carefully omitting anything that might give away the proposal and trying to figure out a way to stop having to evade Iceberg.

After dinner, the two of them lay in bed together, Iceberg curled up in Gears’s arms. He’s still enough and his breathing slow enough to be sleeping, and Gears starts drifting off himself before Iceberg speaks.

“Cog?” he asks softly, and at an assenting noise from Gears continues, “You know I want to stay with you as long as possible, right?”

If he were more awake, this question would make Gears wonder very strongly at its meaning, but it’s late, and their shift was long and started early, and Gears is tired, so all he thinks to answer is “Yes, dear. Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can you guess the extremely obvious twist because gears sure won't for the next five chapters
> 
> remember to like comment and SMASH that subscribe button at systemaltoclef dot tumblr


	3. Day Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah.

For a very long while before Iceberg's assignment, most of the work Gears did was primarily alone. He didn't particularly care one way or the other, his position simply worked out in such a way that the projects he worked on tended to be solo and the work he  _ did _ do with other people primarily case-by-case consultation; in the process, he developed a minor reputation that seemed to lead others to give him even more space by default, and even his prior assistants tended to treat him as something separate from them. 

Iceberg, despite being at the time of assignment objectively the least invested in remaining in his position yet, clicked with Gears, and suddenly Gears found himself part of a unit and remarkably fine with that fact. A few months into their partnership, Iceberg's position was deemed (to his great dismay) semipermanent; a few years in, working alone started to feel like the unnatural thing, and now, seven years in, Gears finds himself working with Iceberg on their own proposal, albeit without Iceberg's knowledge, and if not for the omission inherent in the whole thing, he'd be wholly pleased to do so.

(There's something circular, he thinks, in the logic of ending up working with Iceberg on his proposal that he wants to give because he works so well with Iceberg that the thought of them staying together forever seems ideal, but here he is.)

Really, though, despite all his distress at the circumstances, he'll take five days planning half a Valentine's without Iceberg if it means the two of them can solve problems together for the rest of their lives. 

On his way out of the morning’s administrative meeting regarding progress made on the situation, Dr. Bright corners him.

“You  _ cannot _ be serious,” they say. Gears supposes he can’t confirm or deny that, since he has absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. Massaging their temples, they continue “Your boyfriend is helping you plan your  _ proposal of marriage _ to him.”

Oh. Yes. He can see why one could see that as something unfortunate.

“You’re coming with me, director’s orders.”

“This is misappropriation of power, Dr. Bright,” Gears says automatically. “Especially under emergency circumstances.”

“Okay, okay, yeah, I know,” Bright says, waving their arms dismissively. “I  _ knew  _ you’d say this, in fact, which is why I prepared us a very productive field trip the moment I heard about this— catastrophic lapse in judgment.  _ We’re _ going to retrieve the documentation for the older analog archival system so that everyone else knows how to safely and easily collect and reproduce the files that didn’t get transferred when we switched to the new one.”

“Why is this responsibility simply open for the taking? Shouldn’t this have been done already?” Gears asks. Bright’s grin shifts to a distinctly more strained variant.

“Because it’s stored in a  _ mildly  _ defunct part of the site and nobody wants to do it, so everyone’s kinda just been pretending someone else will.” They flash a fingergun with one hand and grasp SCP-963 in their other. “And I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling pretty someone-elsey right now!”

Gears sighs.

“How many files haven’t been switched to the modern format?”

“It’s in the top ten complaints I’ve been getting for the past few days, and I’ve been getting  _ complaints _ . I think a lot of this stuff was just digitized in lieu of straining the archival staff harder, but. Well.” 

“The work I’ll be deferring for this?”

“Anything I can sign for instead of you, send to my office once this is done.”

"Iceberg is expecting me back."

"So tell him I accosted you on the way out of the meeting to run an errand with me," Bright says. 

“You are  _ very  _ determined to have this conversation, aren’t you,” Gears says. Bright smiles, hands on their hips, and dips out of Gears’s way to let him exit the conference room. Gears composes a quick message to Iceberg to let him know of the circumstances and steps out.

“If you set your mind to it, there’s nothing you can’t do,” Bright says once he's finished, indicating a direction for the two of them to walk. “Except, segue, planning a fuckin’ proposal with the person you’re about to propose to. What the  _ hell _ , Charles.”

“How did you even find out about this?”

“Iceberg’s my friend, too, y’know,” they say. “He told me the two of you were planning up your proposal last night.” 

Wait. Does Iceberg  _ know  _ what they’re doing.

“Did he say that in those terms?” Gears asks. Bright doesn’t say anything for a long moment.

“Holy  _ shit,  _ dude,” they mutter. “He doesn’t  _ know _ you’re planning a proposal, does he.” Gears shakes his head. “He seriously thinks this is just— Gears. Since when do we live in a  _ sitcom? _ ” (Gears briefly considers asking for clarification on this, given that he has a very limited understanding of how sitcoms work, but assumes it would be missing the point.) “Okay. Well. That’s worse, I think.”

He can’t really disagree on this one. Complicated pretenses have always stressed him out; if he had to maintain this much longer than for the next four days, he thinks the whole thing would break down in short notice.

“He suggested planning our anniversary together,” Gears says. “I couldn’t really say no.” Iceberg had seemed so anticipatory, after all. (He doesn’t mention this aloud, out of suspicion that it would simply frustrate Bright further.)

Bright takes in a breath and makes a variety of hand gestures, apparently trying to think of what to say next.

“You are such a good boyfriend,” they finally say. “Evidently to the point of fucking yourself over.”

“Thank you, I think?”

“This is at best 50% of a compliment, believe me,” they mutter, gesturing to stop walking and pressing the call button on an elevator in front of them. 

“…I don’t mind working with Iceberg on this, though,” Gears says after a moment. Iceberg’s input is making this whole thing a great deal less stressful than it would’ve been in a vacuum, after all; on his own, this would’ve felt insurmountable.

“Gears, you’ve been my friend for a solid decade, and I love you, okay?” Bright says, staring at the elevator doors. “And it’s with that love in my heart that I say you are  _ terrible  _ at shenanigans, and I hate to say it, but there’s no other way to describe this situation.”

The elevator doors open and the two of them step in. 

“It’s nice planning this together with him,” Gears says. “I’m fine with it.”

“Are you. And how’s hiding the engagement part of the plan going,” Bright says flatly, jabbing at one of the buttons and flashing their keycard at the reader, and hm. He can’t exactly argue with that one.

“…It’s still better than doing it alone, I think.”

“Really now,” Bright says, but before they can say anything else the elevator door opens. 

The hallway the door opens into is dark and has obviously been untouched for some time; a thick layer of dust is visible on the floor immediately outside the elevator.

“Right, so. This is why nobody wants to come down here,” Bright says as they step out of the elevator. “Creepy as fuck. And probably not great for asthmatics.”

“It’s just disused,” Gears says, taking out his phone and switching on its flashlight function to check the walls for a lightswitch. “There’s hardly anything frightening about it.” 

“The dark?”

“The lights are still there,” Gears replies. “They just need to be switched on.” He shines his phone's light further down the wall until he sees a switch, and flips it on. About half of the lights in the hall switch on; the others remain dark. One flickers wildly. 

"…The reminder of human artifice's inevitable failure?"

“The reminder that fluorescent light fixtures have limited lifespans. Where exactly are we going?”

“You’re no fun,” Bright says, leading him down the hallway. “Master copy is, probably unsurprisingly, kept with all the other procedure files in the old primary director’s office.”

“Right.” They walk in silence for a moment. 

“Seriously, though,” Bright says as they turn a corner. “How are you  _ taking  _ this so well? You’re not exactly into complicated social situations, and this is a hell of a complicated social situation.”

Gears doesn’t quite know how to answer this, because they’re right— this has been deeply stressful interpersonally, he desperately needs this to be over with, and he’s still unsure if Iceberg has picked up on him acting strangely. At the same time, though, the parts of the planning he’s been doing with Iceberg have been  _ fun  _ in a way he strongly suspects the same work wouldn’t have been alone, to the point where it almost makes up for the subterfuge emotionally, and Iceberg has been very openly happy to work together on their anniversary plans.

“I know it is,” he says. After a moment, Bright shrugs.

“Well. I guess there’s not much to say to that,” they say, stopping in front of a door and dusting off the nameplate. “We’re here, by the way.”

The two of them step in, Gears flicking on the lights; the office clearly hasn’t been touched in some time. Bright ducks over to a door behind the desk and opens it to a smaller, adjoined room full of filing cabinets.

“C’mere,” they say. “Two sets of eyes to look for these.” Gears enters the side room, Bright pulling the door closed behind him with a click.

“What are we looking for?”

“Under ‘archival’, probably,” Bright says, pulling open a file drawer. “Or ‘standardized procedures’. Something along those lines.” Gears takes out a drawer labeled “S-V” and starts to sifts through the files at the front before Bright calls out “Nevermind, found it.”

“That’s it?” Gears asks. He assumes the  _ After all this?  _ is implicit.

“Honestly, I was expecting this to be more complicated somehow too, but whatever,” Bright says. “At least we’ll get this distributed out sooner than I thought.” They move to open the door. The handle wiggles in place.

Bright tries again, to the same result, and turns to Gears.

“So, just a question, but if you were hypothetically accidentally locked in a side room in part of the Site nobody goes to,  _ would  _ you say that experience would give you some insight into why said part of the Site is considered scary?” they say with a pained smile.

“Not as such,” Gears says, sighing. “More as to questionable lock placement.”

“'Kay. So let’s run through our current options,” Bright says, sitting against the side of a cabinet. “One, pick the lock.”

“With  _ what _ ?” 

“…Yeah, fair.” Bright runs a hand through their hair. “Two, break the door down.”

“I don’t think either of us could do that,” Gears says. Dr. Bright’s current body is rather small, and Gears is hardly in the habit of strength training.

“Three,  _ Mission: Impossible  _ it through the vents.” 

“They’re not large enough for either of us,” Gears says. “Why don’t we just call someone for help?”

“In  _ this  _ part of the Site,” Bright says, gesturing around them. "Who's gonna hear?"

“With our phones, Dr. Bright.” 

Bright raises a hand to object, pauses, and lowers it. 

"Does the site wifi signal even reach down here?" They take their own phone out of their pocket. "'Cause if it doesn't— uh. Hm."

"What?" Gears asks. 

"You ever notice Foundation buildings all have really, really good signals? I get why it's necessary and all, and like I recognize who I'm saying this about, but I  _ swear _ something's up with Foundation tech."

"Mm," Gears says, trying to think of a way to change the subject so he doesn't have to remember what information Bright isn't supposed to be aware of. "So—"

"Who do we ask to get us out of here, by the way?" Bright says, and Gears takes a moment of internal relief at the topic switch. "Pretty sure most people are kinda busy right now." 

Gears goes over his options and very rapidly comes to a conclusion. 

"Iceberg, I think." Bright tilts their head. 

"Aren't you two swamped as well? I cannot imagine you've seriously come through this easily." (Unfortunately, Bright is technically correct; today while opening their office the two of them were greeted with a pile of paper almost as tall as yesterday's.)

"Iceberg injured his wrist yesterday. He can't do any work involving handwriting," Gears says. Bright grimaces. 

"…You want me to assign someone over to you for the next few days? And I mean, also, good, message him, but seriously, you want that?"

"I'll be fine," Gears says, composing a message. He doesn't think he could deal with the stress of a new person on top of anything else, to be honest. 

His phone vibrates a moment later; Iceberg texting back to ask their exact location. He sends it to him. 

"Can he even access this floor?" Bright asks. 

"He knows my numerical code," Gears says. Bright laughs. 

"You have horrible password security, you know."

Gears hums in response. He trusts Iceberg, really; and besides, Iceberg usually ends up having work at his clearance, so it's simpler for the both of them in the long run for Gears to share things like his security codes. Horrible operating procedure, but simpler and infinitely more efficient, which he assumes is why despite this being a fairly open secret nobody has made him change to new ones. 

And after all, the two of them are a unit. 

It's quiet for a minute; Bright scrolls through their phone and Gears sits with his own thoughts. 

"You know, the two of you are practically already married," Bright says after a while. "I don't think this is going to change very much about your relationship in the long run."

"I know," Gears says. He's thought about it in the months since deciding to propose; they live together, do most things together, and are formally acknowledged as a couple by those around them. Engagement and marriage will change very little for the two of them, maybe nothing significant at all, but he still wants it anyway. 

"I'm not sure you even need to ask, really. You can probably just say 'when we're married' and he'll go along with it. And then you two have a civil ceremony next summer." Bright's tone is gently teasing. 

"He deserves more than that," Gears says softly. _ He deserves all I can give him and more.  _ Bright shakes their head and sighs. 

"Sap. I can't  _ believe _ people think you don't have feelings."

They sit there in silence for a moment until Gears's phone lights up with a message notification. 

"He's at the elevator," Gears reads off to Bright. 

"Cool." Bright looks up from their phone. "…Not that we have a ton of time to talk about this, but you're still making an absolutely ridiculous choice by working with him on this."

"I don't think I could do this alone," Gears says. Bright makes an affronted face. "Or mostly alone, Dr. Bright; the whole Site is very much busy at the moment, in such a way that allows very little spare time." Seemingly appeased, they nod. "I admit the omission is not ideal, but I'm not certain how I would go about resolving that."

"I mean," Bright says, "the way you'd go about resolving that is politely declining to plan your anniversary with him, but I  _ think _ we're past that." Gears nods. "Have you even been able to work the proposal into this?"

Admittedly, the answer to this is a no; Gears's original structure for the proposal was tied into several parts of the initial plan that remain impossible to salvage, and what the two of them have hashed out in the meantime isn't exactly structured in a way that provides any natural opening for Gears to propose. Gears shakes his head. 

"And we still need to do that, I’m assuming, unless you’ve gotten okay with figuring it out on the go while I wasn’t looking.” (Honestly, Gears  _ wishes  _ that were the case.)

“It’s… still necessary.” Bright sighs.

“Well. I’ll be the first to say this isn’t going to be  _ simple _ , but as long as you’ve gotten yourself caught up in shenanigans, you might as well have someone more experienced in them to help you,” they say. “What do the two of you have?”

“We’re going to have dinner together,” Gears says; his voice comes out softer than he anticipates. “And bake.” Bright looks up at him, and he tries to surreptitiously avert eye contact. 

“So. Where in this do you ask him?” they ask after a moment.

“Nowhere?” Gears says, and immediately wonders if this was a trick question he failed to recognize. Really, where would he incorporate a proposal into that?

“So we make a moment where you can ask him. Add something else,” Bright says confidently.

“What could I possibly add that would directly lead into a proposal?” 

“What were you going to do before?” 

“…Give him roses and then ask,” Gears says. He’s not looking at Bright, but he can practically feel their eyebrows raising from where he is; the specifics of Iceberg’s confession were, if not  _ public _ , fairly common knowledge around Site-19.

“Well, you’re not gonna hear criticism of that idea from me,” they say after a moment. “He would’ve one hundred percent found that breathtakingly romantic. Honestly, the question is how to replace that, because even if you never  _ did  _ it, I mean. Tough act to follow.”

Gears is trying to compose a response to this when the door opens and Iceberg ducks his head in.

“Hi,” he says, and then coughs. “Alright, let’s get out of here before I have to breathe any more dust.” Bright stands up and brushes themself off.

Ppl

“Cannot agree with you more there,” they say, stepping into the office. Gears follows.

“So what was this about, anyway?” Iceberg says as they exit into the hallway.

“We were retrieving the documentation for the older Site-19 archival system,” Gears says.

“I mean that, sure, but why bring you specifically along?” Iceberg tilts his head towards Gears. “I assume anyone could’ve done this.”

“Uh,” Bright says, shooting frantic glances at Gears. “I was giving him advice?”

“Advice?” Iceberg asks.

“Advice, yeah,” Bright replies. “On your Valentine’s thing.” Iceberg perks up.

“And you had to get him locked in a side room in a defunct part of the Site to give him this advice?” he says, smiling.

“Oh, absolutely,” Bright says. “That’s how all the best anniversary planning happens.” 

Iceberg laughs and quietly slips a hand into Gears’s.

“Are you two planning me a surprise or something?” he asks teasingly, and Gears’s heart stops for a moment before he reminds himself that Iceberg  _ probably  _ doesn’t know anything.

“Maybe,” Gears says, and although he still feels like he’s horrible at intentional communication, Iceberg smiles and doesn’t say anything more until they reach the elevators.

The rest of the day passes without major incident; Gears sends Bright the paperwork they can sign for as promised and does his best to work through the others, Iceberg sorts the pile into distinct categories, the two of them fit what planning they can in between, and Gears thinks to himself about how he can fit in an opening to propose to Iceberg.

The roses had come to him as an idea almost immediately when he started planning five months ago. It made perfect sense. It was  _ poetic _ , even, and Gears is by no means easily inclined towards poetry, so he did not take the value of the idea lightly.

He has to find another solution. He knows that. But even by nighttime, when he needs to go to sleep, his mind is still blank.

He looks at Iceberg laying next to him and thinks about the first rose he gave him, all those years ago, and he stays awake for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> around here is where the debilitating burnout from writing 3k on the go daily kicked in so combined with the complete and utter lack of. like. return on investment this story is getting us we are at least temporarily pulling the plug. we might come back to this but that'll come, if it does... later. when we're not literally keeping up till 1 am worrying about writing.
> 
> see you next time we make a series of Life Choices and for now happy valentine's week
> 
> we've been systemaltoclef dot tumblr dot com and thanks for watching


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